Aline des-Jardins
A 37-year- old Cruise Director on the cruise ship Bonne Chance in an open marriage with French Federal Prosecutor Philippe Archambault. She falls in love with Maitland and for the first time endangers her open marriage.
Philippe Archambault
A 40-year-old French Federal Prosecutor and husband of Aline for 10 years who worked on a white slavery ring investigation in Paris with Maitland that left the two men good friends, until he learns about the affair between Maitland and his wife.
Lew Walters
A 34-year-old attorney nicknamed “The Shark.” A complete mercenary, he’s a defense attorney who will do literally anything to win. He’s Maitland’s best friend, and there is nobody better to have at your back, or worse to be facing in court.
The Big Man – Dallas Edwards
The Big Man, is the elected State Attorney in Jacksonville, who made Maitland his number two and lets him run the office while he runs for Governor of Florida.
Myra Martinez
Dallas Edwards’ Secretary/Personal Assistant, a 34-year-old platinum blonde with an unearthly body. She’s intelligent, has a wicked sense of humor and has been subtly flirting with Maitland for years.
Dr. Ernst Teller
Teller is the primary psychiatrist working with the court system in Jacksonville. He also has private patients like Debbie Maitland, as he tries to discover what is the cause of the rage against her ex-husband that is literally making her sick.
Patrick Leary
A 34-year-old top Assistant Public Defender, who has an eye for the ladies, hates prosecutors, but genuinely likes Maitland.
Clint Abbott
A 40-ish professional writer who meets Debbie Bascomb while a visiting professor at UNF and becomes her lover before embarking on a dangerous search for the “Saint of the Flowers” in war-torn Africa.
Aunt Clarice
The baby sister of Debbie’s father, the woman who was a second mother to Debbie growing up and was almost as wild as Debbie. Her abandonment by her husband who left her for a younger woman led to Clarice poisoning Debbie’s mind against Bill and her suicide scarred Debbie.
Charlie Case
Case is a bailiff , an ex-con, and a mountain of a man, who keeps order in Circuit Judge Herman Herring’s courtroom. He moves back and forth from the world of lawbreakers to law enforcers and is Herring’s best friend inside and outside the courtroom.
Circuit Judge Herman Herring
A veteran criminal court judge as feared by most attorneys as the criminal defendants who come before him. In another time and place he was even more feared as a behind the lines military assassin.
Johnny August
The blind six-foot-six Elected Public Defender who a very good lawyer and a very poor administrator of the Public Defender’s Office. He hires Debbie Maitland/Bascomb to overhaul and run his menagerie of young, hungry, defense attorneys.
Tyrone Biggs
A 6-foot-4 charming black teddy bear, who is a major South Florida Drug Dealer and cold blooded killer. Maitland sent him away for two years, kept him away from his mother’s funeral, but gave his brother a minimum prison sentence when he could have come down hard.
Carl Cameron
The Times-Union’s number one police reporter. His stories have and will change the lives of Maitland and others. He is in love with Assistant State Attorney Jessica Stephens, who will have sex with him, but won’t marry him.
Jessica Stephens
Stephens is a tall blonde ASA who’s the kind of woman who’s “plain if you look at her one way, and beautiful if you look at her in another.” She offers to spend the night with Maitland at his lowest point, but he takes a pass, for which he’s very grateful later on.
O’Brien
O’Brien is an early 60-ish former professional boxer who retired with a good ring record and one dead man on his conscience and now runs, “O’Brien’s” a “honky-tonk” which is what a Pub is called in this country. “O’Brien’s” is where everyone eventually comes.
Father Eagen Dunleavy
A famous Irish priest, the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in the 90s for his work in, and bravery, in saving innocents from slaughter in the Hutu/Tutsi genocide. He meets Maitland on board the Bonne Chance and makes a very big impression before being murdered on a trip to try to head off another bout of bloodletting.
Officer Shawn Smith
A veteran and respected black cop. The shooting of his girlfriend’s white husband and two brothers sets up a conflict with Maitland. Maitland knows he should take the hero cop before a Grand Jury, no matter what it costs him. And it could cost him a lot.
William Sutton
A 37-year-old stockbroker and all around asshole whose divorce stood to lose him a share of the $5 million his nurse wife was poised to receive in an inheritance. Until someone lured her to the dunes of North Jacksonville and beat her and her unborn son to death.
Paul Donnally
The 44-year-old Director of Publicity for Duval University, a small private Jacksonville university, is married to Paula Donnally, whom he has loved for 20 years. Until the day everything changes. And puts Maitland in the middle of a domestic tragedy.
Paula Donnally
A 42-year-old Realtor. Like her husband, she has Secrets. Those secrets lead her to challenge the criminal justice system and Maitland to get what she wants. She’s used to getting her way, but in Maitland’s case, she wants more than her way. She wants Maitland.
Carlos Herrerra
A former boxer who has been training fighters for decades met Maitland when Maitland prosecuted the son of a millionaire Texas oilman for the death of Carlos’ son Juan in a bar fight. When Maitland comes to him for help, Carlos sets him on the path that will eventually led to the prosecutor’s physical and mental transformation.
Mendoza
Mendoza is the highly placed figure in a feared Mexican drug cartel who has been captured and is scheduled to be tried somewhere in the U.S. Cartel leaders have sworn not to allow this to happen and have killed American prosecutors to make their point.
The Old Man
Leandro Rojas known universally as The Old Man is the long-time head of one of the most feared criminal organizations in the world. In his eyes, he owes a debt to Bill Maitland and nothing will stop him from paying that debt. Not even Bill Maitland. Not even a war with the Mexican cartel.
Richard Anderson
Richard Anderson, former Times-Union reporter and friend of Maitland, he became an international hero in the “Gunfight on Fourth Street” in the late 90s and went on to enjoy fame, fortune, and a LOT of women in Hollywood and elsewhere.
Sergeant Heather McDonald
A Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office investigator who plays a big part in the “Granny Killer” trial and gives Maitland a new appreciation for hot and sexy GILFS (granny you’d like to f***).
Jeremy Prentice
Jeremy Prentice, a highly placed lawyer in the Justice Department working on the Mendoza drug trial who becomes suspicious about Maitland’s possible ties to the Mexican Cartel AND The Old Man. He may be more dangerous to Maitland than professional killers.
Meagan Whitcomb
Also known as “Dimples”, is a Jacksonville lawyer who worked with Maitland when he was the “Most Married Man in the Courthouse” and now that he’s a free man, she has designs on his virtue.
Kirk Deel
Kirk is a 29-year-old Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office deputy who meets Maitland while providing security at St. Vincent’s Medical Center for a key witness in an upcoming trial. He proves to be a solid ally.
Frank, Bulldog and Wilson
Members of a team of professional assassins operating in Mexico. Bulldog will kill anybody, Wilson is a sexual sadist and Frank is the team leader who is the best at what he does, except that he thinks too much.
Celestial Madonna
Celestial Madonna – a television correspondent whose real name is Jane Thurma
n of Pahokee. She meets Maitland at the Granny Killer Trial and later tries to show him the merits of the single life in New York City.
Judge Leonard Pizarro
Presiding judge in the Granny Killer trial and scheduled to hear William Sutton’s murder case. At 70, he’s the oldest full-time active judge in Jacksonville.
Mitch McConnell
Mitch McConnell, former Jacksonville Cop and currently an investigator for the State Attorney’s Office in Jacksonville.
Annette Nettles (Annie)
Annie is an attractive red-haired Assistant Public Defender currently involved in a fairly public affair with Patrick Leary while never having bothered to divorce her husband, Ian.
Ian Nettles
Ian Nettles, hulking 6-4 flame-haired DEA agent whose code name is Widowmaker. He comes down to Jacksonville to find the wife who walked out on him two years before to come work in Jacksonville. She wants to know why it took him two years to come after her.
Dave Brandon
Dave Brandon, Assistant State Attorney directly under Maitland who’s the “most married man in the courthouse” after Maitland’s marriage collapses, but now his marriage appears headed for the rocks after a one-night stand with Paula Donnally.
Barry Macon
Barry Macon, William Sutton’s defense attorney in his upcoming trial. A former football great at the University of Florida, he is a member of the legendary Macon defense lawyer family.
Wilbur Bell
Wilbur Bell, a sickly old man who is the best thing Maitland has going in his efforts to convict William Sutton of his wife and unborn son’s murders, and possibly a third murder as well. Maitland has to try to keep him alive while Sutton and his allies try to remove him.
Ewan Maitland
Ewan Maitland, William Maitland’s coal miner father who died in a mine cave-in when Maitland was only eight years old. His death has scarred and shaped the younger Maitland’s life.
Elise Maitland
Elise Maitland, William Maitland’s mother, who took her son from coal country to Florida after her husband’s death and eventually remarried. She has hated Debbie Maitland since the night her son was almost killed saving her from a brutal gang rape that Elise blames Debbie for.
Sheriff Gerald Knight
Duval County Sheriff. Generally an ally and friend of Maitland’s, the decision to take Shawn Smith to a Grand Jury, caused hard feelings that are finally beginning to be forgotten.
Sheriff David Bludwurth
Sheriff David Bludwurth is the longtime sheriff in Satsuma County, a small, insular Florida County. Probably the most corrupt lawman in the state, neither the Feds nor the state has been able to bring him to justice. He’s been compared to a rattlesnake that doesn’t rattle before he strikes.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
As you’ve noted if you’ve read this far, “When We Were Married” is a VERY sexually explicit novel. And the language is rough. If this were a film, it would be Triple X rated. If anyone was offended, I am sorry. But the books are what they are. And the remaining half of this series will be equally explicit. If you’ve read “The Wind Is Rising,” I hope you’ve seen that the sex is only a small, but a necessary, element of the novel. “When We Were Married” is the story of the marriage of two people, how it came about, how it ended, and what lies in store for both of them as they enter new lives after 20 years of a very different life. Sex has to be in it because sex is a vital component of most people’s lives, married or not. But it is equally about the impact of fathers on sons, obsessions that guide lives, the call of duty, the way we let our lives slip through our fingers never realizing what’s happening until it’s too late and the connections that tie people together across continents and oceans. It is about the law, the world and power of the prosecutor, race relations in the early 21st century in the South, drugs and international crime.
“The Wind Is Rising” is the third in a series of novels which are really one long story, which I anticipate hitting the million-word mark. The first is “The Long Fall” published in 2010-2011 and in altered format in 2012. The second novel in the series was “Second Acts” published in 2012. “The Wind Is Rising” was planned to be one LONG volume but I decided to break it into three volumes. I hope to release the second volume later this summer and the third and final part of “Wind” in the Fall, if not earlier. The fourth part of the novel, “Nobody Gets Out Alive” will also be released in three parts, in 2014.
Most readers of this series have been with it from the beginning in 2010. But because I know new readers discover it on a regular basis – and email me trying to find out where they can discover the continuation of the story – I am going to post blurbs for both previously published volumes and some sample reviews. I would ask anyone who’s read this volume, or reads any of the others, to please email me your thoughts or comments or any reviews you might want posted. I can be reached at [email protected]. Both my websites are currently operating at less than 100 percent efficiency so any comments I’d prefer to come in by email.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daniel Quentin Steele is a Florida author and one of those rare native Floridians. A former educator, he has worked for three major Florida newspapers. He has been a public relations professional for a major statewide professional association and a speechwriter and political and media consultant as well. He has covered and reported on crime and cops, courts and trials in several Florida cities. He has had one novel, “The Exile of Ellendon” published in the U.S. and Great Britain as well as short stories published in the U.S., Canada, Australia and England. He has written a series of very different novels under another name.
FIND DANIEL QUENTIN STEELE ON-LINE
E-MAIL: Daniel Quentin [email protected]
FACEBOOK: Daniel Quentin Steele
~Reader comments are welcome and solicited~
BOOKS IN THE ‘WHEN WE WERE MARRIED’ SERIES
When We Were Married, Volume 1
OJ SIMPSON, CASEY ANTHONY, TRAYVON MARTIN. Three of the best known names in the world, figuring in three of the most internationally famous criminal trials of the past quarter century. Those trials made their names famous and made media stars of defense attorneys. Prosecutors don't fare as well. Which Jacksonville Assistant State Attorney William Maitland says only exposes the most ill-concealed secret of the criminal justice system.
“That’s what most people don’t understand. The people with real power aren’t cops. They just investigate and arrest. The people with real power aren’t judges. They have a lot of power, but who they see and what charges they deliberate on don’t come from them. I decide that.
In my hands is the power to decide who is arrested and who is released; who faces death or 25 years or who gets mercy. And there really is no oversight, nobody looking over my shoulder. Cops can bitch, but my decisions are final. Judges can bitch and threaten to take action, but they never do. The only person with any real power is the Big Man, and he had given me the Keys to the Kingdom and he had never in five years countermanded any decision I’d made.
Most of the time it doesn’t bother me. I’ve made mistakes, but it comes with the territory. Surgeons kill people. It’s how they learn. I have sent people to prison who didn’t deserve what they got and let people go free or out early and regretted my actions. But it's part of the job.”
William Maitland has that power because the eyes of the Big Man – Florida State Attorney Dallas Edwards - are focused on the Governor’s Chair in Tallahassee in 2006 and he trusts his top assistant to garner the headlines needed to win that office.
Follow the loves, hates, affairs and blazing sexual encounters behind closed doors that are a part of the court system in Jacksonville. Because, as one Public Defender notes, “every courthouse is just a little Peyton Place.”
“When We Were Married" is the story of the death of a marriage of a driven prosecutor and a beautiful professor, and what happens afterward.
It has psychiatrists and assass
ins and CIA Black Ops teams, the protective head of a deadly Colombian Crime Cartel, a cold blooded and savage murderer who is determined to save the wife and family of the prosecutor who sent him to prison, the Angel of Death, the Shark and the Iceman. It features loyal friends, friendly enemies and really, really bad people.
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